regard to promotion and exchanges in the army. In the course of his speech, the honourable member called the attention of the house to a splendid establishment in Gloucester-place, at the head of which was a lady of the name of Clarke, who lived under the protection' of the duke of York. To her influence he ascribed the "system of corruption that had so long prevailed in the military department of the government." He descanted upon the military negotiations' of this woman, and presented the house with a comparative statement of the regulated scale, and Mrs Clarke's scale of prices for commissions; he detailed several extraordinary cases of interference in the affairs of the war office; and concluded by moving the appointment of a committee of inquiry. The motion was not resisted by ministers, and a long investigation took place before a committee of the whole house. At the close of the evidence, on the 22d of February, 1809, the opinion of the general officers, who were members of the house, was asked with respect to the discipline and condition of the army, and whether the system of promotion had not been improved under the administration of the duke of York. Generals Norton and Fitzpatrick, the secretaryat-war, Sir Arthur Wellesley, and General Grosvenor, all answered these questions affirmatively, and pronounced high eulogiums on the character and conduct of his royal highness. During this inquiry, which was continued uninterruptedly for three weeks, Mary Anne Clarke was repeatedly examined at the bar. On the 23d of February the duke addressed the following letter to the house of commons, through the medium of the speaker.

“Horse Guards, Feb. 23, 1809.

"SIR, I have waited with the greatest anxiety until the committee appointed by the house of commons to inquire into my conduct, as commander-in-chief of his majesty's army, had closed its examinations, and I now hope that it will not be deemed improper to address this letter, through you, to the house of commons. I observe with the deepest concern, that, in the course of this inquiry, my name has been coupled with transactions the most criminal and disgraceful, and I must ever regret and lament, that a connection should ever have existed, which has thus exposed my character and honour to public animadversion. With respect to my alleged offences, connected with the discharge of my official duties, I do, in the most solemn manner, upon my honour as a prince, distinctly assert my innocence, not only by denying all corrupt participation in any of the infamous transactions which have appeared in evidence at the bar of the house of commons, or any connivance at their existence, but also the slightest knowledge or suspicion that they existed at all. My consciousness of innocence leads me confidently to hope, that the house of commons will not, upon such evidence as they have heard, adopt any proceeding prejudicial to my honour and character; but, if, on such testimony as has been adduced against me, the house of commons can think my innocence questionable, I claim of their justice, that I shall not be condemned without trial, or be deprived of the benefit and protection which is afforded to every British subject, by those sanctions under which alone evidence is received in the ordinary administration of the law.-I am, Sir, yours,

FREDERICK."

The house having closed its examination, Colonel Wardle moved an address to his majesty, stating that it had been proved to the satisfaction of the house that corrupt practices existed to a very great extent in the different departments of the military administration, and praying that his majesty would be graciously pleased to remove the duke of York from the command of the army. A keen debate ensued, and was maintained for six days. On the 17th of March, the chancellor of the exchequer brought forward a resolution modified in these terms:"That this house having appointed a committee to investigate the conduct of the duke of York, as commander-in-chief, and having carefully considered the evidence which came before the said committee, and finding that personal corruption, and connivance at corruption, have been imputed to his said royal highness, find it expedient to pronounce a distinct opinion upon the said imputation, and are accordingly of opinion that it is wholly without foundation." This motion was carried by 278 against 196. Previously to the division it was generally understood that the duke had come to the determination to resign his office of commander-in-chief; and on the 20th the chancellor of the exchequer informed the house that his royal highness, having obtained a complete acquittal of the charges, was desirous of giving way to that public sentiment which, however ill-founded, they had unfortunately drawn down upon him; that, under these circumstances, he had tendered to his majesty his resignation of the office of commander-in-chief, which the king had been graciously pleased to accept. General Sir David Dundas was appointed his successor; and one of the first consequences of the investigation was the enactment of a law declaring the brokerage of offices, either in the army, the church, or the state, to be a crime highly penal.

It is said that these extraordinary investigations originated in the enmity of a person in obscure life, named M Callum, who, conceiving himself to have been injured by the duke, adopted this method of traducing his character, and by his indefatigable diligence and great acuteness, succeeded in bringing together that evidence on which Colonel Wardle grounded his celebrated motion. The woman Clarke, who bore so conspicuous a part in the inquiry, was originally the daughter of a journeyman-printer, and married a journeyman-mason in early life, to whom she bore four children, before she entered upon the infamous line of life in which she afterwards procured such disgusting notoriety.

One of the earliest acts of the prince-regent was the reappointment of his brother as commander-in-chief, in 1812. From this period to the day of his death, the duke's official conduct was not only unimpeachable, but in many respects praiseworthy. He gave dissatisfaction, however, to the nation, by his accepting an allowance of £10,000 per annum as custos of the king's person, after the death of Queen Charlotte in 1818. His duchess, from whom he had long been living separated, died on the 6th of August, 1820.

One of the latest and also one of the most remarkable acts of the duke's public life, was his celebrated speech against Catholic emancipation, in the house of lords, on the evening of the 25th of April, 1826. It was as follows:-" My Lords, I present a petition to your lordships, praying that further concessions may not be made to the Roman catho

walls, men who possess only the show of justice, and who have condemned us to death contrary to law," &c. &c. The attorney-general opened the prosecution. His lordship conducted his defence himself. A petty fraud, he said, committed in his own family, had first drawn his attention to the laws against felony, when he found that it constituted a capital crime, though the sum taken was no more than eighteenpence. He then entered into a history of our criminal law, from the time of Athelstan, for the purpose of proving that code in its present state to be by much too sanguinary. This, he said, was a subject which struck his heart. He had communicated his ideas to Lord Mansfield, and to the Recorder, who had admitted their propriety, and to Judge Gould, who had desired him to put his thoughts on paper. This was all he had done in the present instance. His idea was only to enlarge the powers of the judges; though wicked lawyers had attributed to him another intention; and he assured the court, that if he had time to send for his books, he could show them that every word of his pamphlet was actually in the Bible! He complained very much of those vexatious prosecutions which were instituted against him. He quoted Blackstone's Commentaries, book iv. cap. 23, who says, "that informations filed ex officio, by the attorney-general, are proper only for such enormous misdemeanors as peculiarly tend to disturb or endanger the king's government, and in the punishment or prevention of which a moment's delay would be fatal." This, he said, had by no means appeared in his case, as one of the informations against him had been pending for ten, and the other for six months. This extraordinary mode was therefore a grievance on him, which was not justified, as it appeared, by any pressing necessity. He exhorted Judge Buller not to lose the present opportunity of instructing the jury on the disputed point, whether they were to judge of law as well as of fact. He then complained that spies had been set over him for several months; and concluded with repeating his declaration, that his object had been reformation, not tumult. The jury without hesitation returned their verdict, guilty.

A second information was then read, which stated, as libellous and seditious, two paragraphs which appeared in the Public Advertiser, relating the particulars of a visit paid by Count Cagliostro, accompanied by Lord George Gordon, to Monsieur Barthelemy, the French chargé des affaires, enlarging on the merits and sufferings of Count Cagliostro, and concluding with some severe reflections on the French queen as the leader of a faction, and on Comte D'Adhemar, the French ambassador, and Monsieur Barthelemy, as the insidious agents of the queen and her party. The attorney-general opened the case, by mentioning how necessary it was that all foreigners, particularly those in an official situation, should be protected equally in their property and character. The honour of the nation, he remarked, was concerned in this proceeding. If it was not effectual, no foreigner of distinction would visit a country where he was exposed without resource to indiscriminate and unmerited censures on his private conduct and character. The present publication, he observed, bore with it such a palpable tendency to affect in a dangerous degree the amity existing between the two nations, that the French ambassador had of himself taken up the business, when it was properly determined by his ma

jesty's servants that it should be punished by an official prosecution Lord George Gordon then entered on his defence, if such it could be called, as he contented himself with re-asserting and justifying every thing which he had written. There did, he said, exist a faction in Paris guided by the queen, and the Comte Cagliostro was actually persecuted for his adherence to the Cardinal de Rohan. Comte D'Adhemar, he proceeded to say, was a low man of no family, but yet possessed of some cleverness; in short, said his lordship, whatever Jenkinson is in England, Comte D'Adhemar is in France. (This allusion to Lord Hawkesbury created universal laughter.) The character of the French queen, he said, was as notorious as that of the empress of Russia. He was proceeding in this strain, until the court was again compelled to interfere. After a short charge from the bench, the jury instantly returned their verdict, guilty.

His lordship endeavoured to evade sentence by retiring to Holland, but he was sent back from that country to England, and apprehended at Liverpool while suffering under the initiatory rite of Judaism, which religion his lordship had seen proper to embrace. On being brought up to the bar of the court he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in Newgate for the first libel; and to two years further, after the expiration of that time, for the second offence; also to pay a fine of £500, and find sureties for his good behaviour for the term of fourteen years. These sentences were perhaps unnecessarily severe; as his lordship's intellects were evidently impaired at the time, and he had ceased to be a formidable character as a public leader. They were however carried into execution, and his lordship was only relieved from imprisonment by the hand of death. He died in Newgate prison, after a delirious fever, on the 1st of November, 1793.

John Hely Hutchinson.

BORN A. D. 1715.-died A. D. 1794.

THIS extraordinary character was a native of Ireland, and educated at the university of Dublin. In 1748 he was called to the Irish bar, and soon obtained a silk-gown, having assumed a leading place from his first appearance amongst his brethren of the long robe. He materially increased his influence by marrying a rich heiress, whose name of Hutchinson he added to his own. In the Irish parliament he distinguished himself as the great antagonist of the eloquent and patriotic Flood.

In 1774 he was appointed secretary of state for Ireland, and provost of Trinity college, Dublin. From this period until his death in 1794, his career was marked by unquestionable talent, but an unblushing and unbounded rapacity for office and emolument. At a time when he was already in possession of several lucrative posts, he applied for some further emoluments to Lord Townshend, who jestingly told him that he had nothing to offer him, but a majority of dragoons; which the secretary, it is said, unblushingly accepted; and had its duties performed by a deputy, to whom he allowed such a remuneration as left a considerable surplus out of the pay. On his first attendance at a levee, in

England, the king asked Lord North who he was.

"That is your

majesty's principal secretary of state for Ireland," replied the witty premier, a man, on whom if your majesty was pleased to bestow the united kingdom, would ask for the Isle of Man as a potato-garden."

A contemporary says of Mr Hutchinson: "He was a leading man in the senate, and commanded attention whenever he spoke. He had the clearest head that ever conceived, and the sweetest tongue that ever uttered the suggestions of wisdom: but he had his faults, and was always deemed what is understood by the world, a rank courtier. When he was appointed provost of the university of Dublin, which situation, since the reign of Elizabeth, who founded the college, was always filled by an unmarried man, the Celibacy of Fellows, who were interdicted from conjugal rites, rose up in arms against him. Some of the best satirical writings, in prose and verse, that the Irish ever read, made their appearance on this occasion, in the daily prints, and were afterwards published by the title of Pranceriania,' Mr Hutchinson for many antecedent years bearing the name of Prancer. The conflict in the university was so great after he became provost, that he procured a decree permitting the fellows to marry. This, however, did not answer; a most formidable party was raised against him. The press teemed with pasquinades, and even the sizars of the house insulted him. "His power and his wealth gained him many adherents, and he stemmed the torrent of opposition with resolution and with success, as to strength of party; but on an examination for a fellowship, where he was to pass the first opinion, in respect to the answer given by one of the candidates to a question, he unfortunately said Bene, when all the senior fellows, who pronounced their decision afterwards, said Non omnino. In the university, as a man of literature, he was never esteemed; as a lawyer, an orator, and a good companion, he ranked highly in the estimation of his friends and the public.

"He was a man of high spirit and of undoubted courage, if setting no value upon life merits that honourable appellation. Although vested with an authority to superintend the education of the rising generation, and acting as provost, who ought to be a pattern of morality and virtue, he accepted of a challenge from a Mr Doyle, and fought him at a place called Summer Hill, a part of the suburbs of Dublin. No mischief ensued. Doyle was near-sighted, and the provost had a strong fit of the gout. The public papers, at this time, teemed with the most bitter invectives against Mr Hutchinson; and perhaps, in the annals of diurnal publications, even Junius not accepted, satire in its most pointed, classical, and beautiful dress, never came forward in greater perfection. The consequence of this was a pamphlet published by the provost, in which he defended his conduct; but this only served as food for his enemies. The pamphlet was turned grammatically into ridicule by an anonymous writer, under the signature of Stultifex Academicus, supposed to be Mr Malone the Shakspeare commentator, and a most humorous and excellent composition it was.

"The partizans of the provost, finding that this one particular daily paper, the Hibernian Journal,' then printed by a Mr Mills, was the particular vehicle of what militated against their patron, formed a plan, in which they succeeded, of forcibly taking this man from his house, and conveying hin, at six o'clock in a winter's evening, to the univer